Obama's war on the Catholic Church isn't just insensitive – it's un-American

No Democratic president ever picked a fight with the Catholic Church in quite the way that Barack Obama has. One of the first things that Jimmy Carter did when he came into office was to scrap federal funding for abortions, while most Democratic office holders have recognised the “freedom of conscience” provision that permits doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in terminations. Even Bill Clinton – the “sex president” – supported some limits on partial birth abortion and made a vague play about "favouring life."

The Democrats stuck to the freedom of conscience line because they never wanted to upset one of their biggest allies in the historic fight for social reform – the Catholic Church. Since the 1960s, the US Church has embraced a variety of Social Gospel that prioritises filling stomachs over saving souls. Its liberalism has progressed to the point where some churches are barely even Catholic anymore. In Los Angeles, the only semi-orthodox Catholic church is the one surrounded by barbed wire on Mel Gibson’s estate. The house of worship that I attend, just off Sunset, enforces hand holding during the liturgy and boasts “a welcoming atmosphere for LGBTQ youth.” The two are presumably synonymous.

Bishops, conservative and liberal, are now a single voice in their disgust with the administration’s move. The scale of Left-wing outrage is astonishing. Even the columnist EJ Dionne – the Polly Toynbee of American Catholics – complained that “progressive” Catholics who had put their reputations on the line to support Obamacare had been “thrown under the bus.” Obama took 54 percent of the Catholic vote in 2008. He will struggle to do that well again.

Why is the Church so agitated, the liberal press asks? After all, the vast majority of Catholic women use some form of contraception and very few of them are concerned about its distribution. My Los Angeles parish is increasingly the cultural norm within the Western Catholic communion: sex and sexuality don't boil the blood in the way that they used to.

The answer is that Obama’s diktat violates the American principle of freedom of conscience. It’s one thing to ask Catholic organisations to provide contraception coverage. It’s another thing to order them to do it. Imagine that you’ve been happily wearing a neck tie since the age of thirteen (imagine you are Mitt Romney). Then, one day, a government bureaucrat knocks on the door to tell you that it’s now the law of the land that you have to wear a neck tie, 24/7. The first reaction of any freedom loving, self-governing individual would be to tear the neck tie off (and maybe use it to throttle the bureaucrat). It’s a basic rule of human nature that people resent being told to do something, even if they intended to do it anyway. The Americans and British are brothers-in-arms when it comes to this kind of obstinacy.

And what is astonishing is the brute determination of Obama to get this one through. Barack Obama loves birth control. Freaking loves it. Politico reports that when he made his "principled" decision to mandate contraception coverage, he personally called two influential Catholic supporters of his healthcare reforms – New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Sister Carol Keehan – to break the news. The admirable courage that he showed (that is, the courage to tell two former allies that you intend to hang them out to dry) is a reflection, say Obama aides, of his commitment to reproductive rights. That commitment was on show in the notorious vote he cast back when he was an Illinois state senator over abortion. He opposed a bill that would have protected the right to life of a baby who survives a late-term abortion. The abandonment of a baby that has effectively been born is far worse than partial birth abortion. It is basically full birth abortion, and it smacks of murder.

For some in the White House, this is all about playing the numbers and motivating the liberal base. One senior aide was quoted as saying, “Who are we going to really lose over this? Ron Paul voters? … Catholics who don’t believe in condoms aren’t going to vote for Barack Obama anyway. Let’s get real.”

But for others, this is nothing less than a secular Jihad. Obama’s head of Health and Human Services told a prochoice meeting, “We are in a war. [Opponents of the administration are trying to] roll back the last 50 years in progress women have made in comprehensive health care in America.” Of course, that’s not true. The Catholic Church is trying to defend its well established right to disagree with federal policy. But this crisis has shown us how fundamentally un-American the White House is in its approach to government. If Obama believes that something is right, he will force others to do it – even in defiance of their God. That’s not just un-American. For all the spiritual pain that it will cause, it’s downright inhumane.